Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Some pre-inaugural thoughts

No, I'm not suggesting that everyone has to join the Obama worship. Criticism, in a democracy, is a healthy thing (pardon the cliché). But some of the conservative sniping is silly or downright ridiculous (dear Lord, not the "Bill Ayers ghosted Obama's memoir!" story again), and some seems rather premature (this piece assumes that Obama will be a big-government guy, but Larry Kudlow points out that 40% of his proposed stimulus package now consists of tax cuts). Conservative guru Richard Viguerie is quoted as saying that the inauguration is no big deal: "we can be happy that we’ve taken another step in the racial progress, but I just am not about race, quite frankly." And he puts up this quote on the "news from the front" on his website. Way to win friends and influence people. Can you say "tone-deaf"?

But there's some pretty silly Obamania out there, too. See, for instance, this letter posted by Andrew Sullivan on his blog:

I remember with Bill Clinton, he had way of making people feel they were "the only person in the room:" and that they "mattered to him" as many articles during his tenure claimed. But what Obama seems to have is the ability not to appear as if he is acting, faking it. ... [H]e is not a faker, not a schmoozer, not a dolt, not a skirt-chaser, not a charlatan, etc. etc. Obama has the realness that comes from the hard psychological work that it takes to really get to know yourself and come out on the other side unafraid of whatever might come your way.

And how does the letter-writer know that? Intuition? So far, Obama has done a pretty oustanding job of being all things to most people. I would say he's a pretty impressive schmoozer all right. I'm sure he has genuine convictions, but I think he'll have to be tested much more before we can truly judge his sincerity. Sometimes, "the ability not to appear as if you're acting" is the best acting of all.

With that, of course, I wish Obama well. And frankly, whether he has that "realness" or not and whether he has completed that fearless journey of self-knowledge is not my first concern. He's been elected president, not spiritual leader; and while moral leadership is often a part of the president's role, especially in troubled times, his actual policy-shaping decisions count for more.

What Obama is doing is switching some of the government's revenue stream from taxation to borrowing (i.e. to delayed taxation). Doing so has economic effects that Democrats and Republicans endlessly argue over -- but at the end of the day, the number of government employees hasn't changed, nor has the share of GDP controlled by the government.

Besides, the other 60% -- that half-trillion dollars or so -- IS new spending. That's more than we spent on Medicare and Medicaid last year. It is more than we spent for the entire Defense Department. It represents a double-digit percentage increase in the size of a budget that ALREADY has a trillion-dollar deficit.

So I'm sorry, Cathy, but Obama is indeed talking about massively increasing the size of the government. Yes, Bush did it too -- but Bush has always been a big-government guy.

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About Me

Writer and journalist, author of Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood (1989) and Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality (1999). Columnist for Reason (monthly) and, from 2000 to January 2007, for The Boston Globe (weekly). Born in Moscow, Russia in 1963; came to the United States in 1980. Rutgers University graduate.

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